Nice work, NBC. You ditch Apple because of $1.99 pricing and go to Zune for...$1.99 pricing. Brilliant!

Microsoft to NBC: "We'll do anything you want, baby. How does $1.99 per episode sound?"

You've successfully redefined clueless, NBC. But I'm sure you'll find DOZENS of Zune users to buy your "newly-priced" $1.99 TV shows.

And here I was paying for The Office like a sucker, when I could've just been getting episodes for free via Acquisition. Silly me. Thanks NBC, you saved me a bundle.

140 million iPods sold to date, 2 million Zunes.

I guess NBC is hoping that the lure of Jay Leno in your pocket will drive millions of people to switch to Zune?

NBC, I had no problem with $1.99 an episode. Now you want to charge me more for something I could have watched for free?You guys are real dicks. I was getting over the air HD for the Office and recording it with my EyeTV. Then after getting fed up with crashes I switched to no cable and no anttenna: Just iTunes (and the occasional torrent or streamed video). I would have never seen some of the shows offered by NBC/Universal if it wasnt for iTunes (House isn't even on your network and you had to take that away????). You're dicks and Microsofts a bunch of dicks for letting you strong arm the industry. But with the economy hurting and people holding on to their cash a little tighter, raising prices higher than all the other competion is certainly the carrot on the stick that a new market needs to succeed. MORANS!

LMAO!!!

NBC.... you guys are complete and utter idiots... LagunaSol you said dozenS... maybe you should have said ONE dozen... are these guys completely stupid? how many zunes are out there compared to iPods? are these guys in business or what? don't they want to make money?

they sell their content to a 100 times smaller market at the same price?? someone needs to get fired for that bone head move... MORONS!!!

NBC exec: yeah.. take that Apple!! we're going to leave boat loads of money on the table... take that!!

here's a clue guys... money is money.

N - Nothing
B - But
C - Clueless

@doctorSpoc: I'm suspecting that NBC and Universal's wishes are to put a monkeywrench in the iPod's popularity by working to humble Apple. The funny part is that iPod sales have not faultered and people still buy plenty from iTunes, with or without their television programming on board. Silly geeses they is precious.

@permissionmag:

"140 million iPods sold to date, 2 million Zunes."

well, they don't really need to drive up the sale of Zunes... all they have to do is sell episodes at $140 each and they make back their money...

NBC exec = STUPID

Even with waning iPod sales (mostly due to market saturation), you still have a saturated market. So the guy who has the 5th gen and has bought a few seasons of shows may not buy the 6th or 7th gen but he may buy a 8th or 9th gen iPod so he can still bring his TV and Movies from iTunes with him. I still put episodes of the office on my iPhone, and I would buy an iPod in the future because I have macs and a shit load of content from iTunes.

If you have worked with Apple and their arrogance (its the Apple Way or the Highway) you might appreciate what NBC is doing. The way Apple treats their resellers, developers and customers, they have no right being in business.

I look forward to the day that the iPod is over run by any of a number of media players and Apple falls flat on their faces.

Oh-uh, looks who's gaining momentum and popularity. Hehehe... I can see fanboys now cursing NBC like hell.

I am so glad I have a Zune 80. Soooo glad...

Lalalalala....

I don't think there are many people that would switch from iPod to Zune on their own free will. I also don't think there is a great number of people that would buy a Zune over and iPod if they're in the market for an mp3 player.

Sorry NBC, as if your decision to replace Conan with frakin Jimmy Fallon (LOSE) wasn't bad enough, you decide to do your funny math where 1+1= banana and switch away from the most successful online distributor of music and video for a company that doesn't even have enough in device sales to have a customer base large enough to replicate your earnings at iTunes, even with your new higher priced "premium content."

Now NBC just needs to be "open to understanding" we get all their crap for free.

They should be focusing their efforts on improving hulu. I won't pay $2 for one episode of The Office, but I will gladly sit through three commercials to watch the episode online.

Stupid execs are stupid.

Let's not forget that MS & NBC have a long standing partnership (hint - it's called MSNBC)
I'm starting to think that Microsoft is the General Motors of the 2010's. I think that makes the Zune the Aztec.
They're dead, they just have not yet realized it.

@rexplex: I can't see Microsoft coming up with a Corvette equivalent in software or hardware.

I'm not so sure. I believe this happened:

1) MS paid NBC to come to Zune
2) They have the Office, 30 Rock, Heroes, My Name is Earl, Scrubs, ER and Law and Order. Not to mention Friends, Seinfeld and Fraiser. And the old Saturday Night Live (the good seasons) can be put onto their for download.

What a slap in the face to the people who supported their content on iTunes. TV execs need to be nurturing loyalty not bending over backwards to inconvenience potential customers / viewers.

i think Kaiser-Machead has it right. This is just a move to humble apple. NBC says "nani nani poo poo we're not playing with your rules, we're taking our ball and going home."
Too bad 'home' is windows.

If anything this will just STRENGTHEN iTunes. Simple math shows that if you sell 100 copies of a show at $5 you will be making less than if you sell 50,000 copies of that same show at $2. NBC is basically finding a way to screw up free money. The overhead on transferring shows online is almost nothing. They will come crawling back to iTunes next year, but they are maybe stupid enough not to. Now I know why they told the striking writers that online sales were not going to amount to much.

@ kahri:

No, too bad "home" is Zune, the DAP no one has heard of.

It's interesting, this new "Apple monopoly" phenomenon. For years Microsoft bullied the market with their Windows/Office monopoly. But you never heard anyone saying "Screw Microsoft, I'm going to attack their monopoly and stop development of my software for Windows. I'm now an exclusive Mac developer." It just didn't happen.

Yet this is what NBC is doing to iTunes by hopping in the sack with Microsoft - doing so by shunning the market leader and going with a bit player.

Yes, NBC, way to "stick it to the man" by pairing up with a real individualistic renegade...Microsoft. Hilarious.

Interesting times we live in.

@Kaiser-Machead: I can't see Microsoft coming up with a Corvette equivalent in software or hardware.

The Corvair, on the other hand...

@daftrok:Earl, Scrubs, Chuck, Friends and Seinfeld are owned by other companies, they just happened to be on NBC. In fact, all of them but Seinfeld are on iTunes.

@Mike12:

NBC could always circumvent Apple selling content without DRM.

Wait, isn't NBC already in bed with Microsoft... MSNBC?

This should be no surprise to anyone.

I didn't buy shows off the iTunes store to watch on my iPod, I bought shows off the store because it gave me the biggest selection of devices to play my content on.

Via iTunes, I can watch on:
My laptop
My media center Mac Mini
My AppleTV
My iPhone
My iPod

With the Zune store, it's:
My Zune

Big difference here. The whole lack of integration with Microsoft's media push is just strange. They have the 360 with it's own store, then the Zune, then the whole Media Center PC thing they tried, and their Windows Mobile platform, but none of it is tied together.

Already, NBC has missed getting money from me. I used to buy episodes of Battlestar Galactica I had missed off iTunes. $2 for me wasn't a big deal for getting something so flexible and commercial free. Now if I miss one, I watch it on Hulu for free with an ad blocker, but unfortunately that limits me to being tethered to a computer and internet connection.

@drakino: Wrongo.

The Zune content will play on a Zune device, any PC with the Zune software, and an Xbox 360 either through streaming or by plugging the Zune in.

The marketplaces aren't integrated yet, but the content does integrate. They've said they're trying to deliver the ability to add XBLM content to the Zune as well, but my guess is that there's licensing hurdles.

TAKE THAT IPOD!!! (and people said the Zune wouldn't last a chance...)

classic case of crabs in a barrel.

@typoink: media center works SOOOOOO WELL. that was the worst part of the xbox360 lie. at least when it isn't bricked up, it could function ALL of the way. i payed for it to be an extender too.

@oo0cyst0oo: Media center works excellently on my machine... maybe you're not configuring something correctly...

@LagunaSol: absolutely agree.
NewsFlash NBC: you ARE the MAN. It's like when the Middle school bully starts high school and he's not the biggest kid anymore. Big Media is just pouting about losing control (of our wallets).

Apple wanted the price per episode to stay at a flat fee of $1.99 but NBC wanted staggered episode pricing starting at $1.99 and UP (meaning higher prices for certain episodes). Apple said no to that.

That's why NBC pulled the plug on iTunes.

Enjoy paying more for NBC content through the Zune store.

Maybe a victory for Zune, but it sucks for your wallet.

@paja: LOL, your name not your comment.
To me, I'm not going to change all my media and the hardware I play it in just to get a few NBC shows, at a premium no less. Small win for Zune, big loss for NBC.

@paja: In fairness to NBC, they did mention that they'd like to be able to charge less than $1.99 for some shows, as well as charging more than that for others.

I'm sure the latter would be the norm, though... they didn't leave Apple to be allowed to charge less a whole lot.

@Sam_Zebian: no, in fact the Zune is a huge smash hit! All those people sporting Zunes everywhere, all those iconic black earpieces, a great cultural phenomenon that redefines portable music. GREAT SUCCESS, like Borat says.